The US Festival, funded by Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak, was two mammoth concert and technology exposition events held at Glen Helen Regional Park in San Bernardino, California, over Labor Day weekend in 1982 and Memorial Day weekend in 1983.
Shout! Factory has begun issuing performances culled from the US Festival, including 2012's
Live at the US Festival 1983 CD/DVD from
Quiet Riot. It captures the pop-metal band's complete set at the event on May 29, 1983, which was known as "Heavy Metal Day" and also featured
Moetley Cruee,
Ozzy Osbourne,
Judas Priest,
Triumph,
Scorpions, and
Van Halen. This day was a crucial turning point in hard rock/heavy metal, as it became a major musical and overall cultural force through the rest of the decade.
Quiet Riot -- vocalist
Kevin DuBrow, lead guitarist
Carlos Cavazo, bass guitarist
Rudy Sarzo, and drummer
Frankie Banali -- helped lead hard rock's charge into the mainstream with its hugely successful album
Metal Health, released just a few months before the US Festival. Daytime festival performances are automatically robbed of a little mystique and power, but
Quiet Riot gamely entertained the crowd of approximately 500,000 fans (attendance estimates vary depending on the source) as the openers of "Heavy Metal Day," with
DuBrow as the boisterous cheerleader (just what every decent frontman needs to be). The Los Angeles quartet's raw set kicks off with "Danger Zone," the studio version of which would not be released until the 2001 expanded and remastered edition of
Metal Health hit store shelves. The rest of the songs are all
Metal Health tracks, including the frantic "Run for Cover," "Love's a Bitch" (with a stripped-down sound illustrating just how much gloss studio recordings are given), a rollicking "Cum On Feel the Noize" (the
Slade cover the band infamously tried to sabotage in the studio when forced by producer and label chief
Spencer Proffer to record it, yet which became a gold-selling top five hit single), the catchy "Slick Black Cadillac," party starter "Let's Get Crazy,"
Cavazo's solo showcase "Battle Axe," and the all-out assault of the set closer "Metal Health (Bang Your Head)." By the end of the year,
Metal Health became the first heavy metal album to reach number one on the Billboard album chart and it eventually sold more than six million copies in the United States.
Quiet Riot's flameout and fall from grace was rather quick and severe, but the band's successes and its brief moment as a genuine phenomenon can never be taken away. Some popular music is timeless while other popular music captures a specific moment in time, is of its time, and sticks out as such.
Quiet Riot's time in the spotlight represented wild fun and youthful abandon, especially in the freewheeling mid-'80s, and there's nothing wrong with that. The only major disappointment with
Live at the US Festival 1983 is the package's lack of liner notes. The festival is outlined in a few short paragraphs on the back cover, but the skimpy insert booklet features just two band photos; the Quiet Riot lineup isn't even mentioned, let alone the songwriting credits.
Shout! Factory is to be commended for resurrecting US Festival performances, but important archival releases deserve decent liner notes. ~ Bret Adams
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